Doctor shortages: Unpacking the ‘Cuban solution’

Abstract

The programme which trains South Africans as doctors in Cuba will expand nearly tenfold for the next 5 years, pouring 1 000 undergraduates annually into our currently under-resourced local medical campuses from 2018 onwards. For the past 3 years, the annual output of Cuban-trained South Africans, ‘polished up’ in their final year at local medical schools, came to about 8% of the 1 300 graduates fully-trained locally.